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Feminism and the Problem of Terrorism

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Feminist Perspectives on Terrorism
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Abstract

The fourth chapter contains an analysis of terrorism from the perspective of feminist theory. The author treats terrorism as a form of political violence through the prism of the crime–terror paradigm, and points to the indispensability of using feminist terms and concepts in the analysis of this phenomenon. In this chapter she refers to criminology and psychoanalysis in order to highlight the problem of the replication of incomplete and discriminatory views that portray the female criminal as a kind of deviation, a caprice, or an anomaly. She proposes to use feminist theories to study extremism and terrorism. This perspective makes it possible to broaden the scope of analyses and to raise awareness about gender stereotypes, prejudices, and the duplication of discriminatory practices in research.

Once there was a certain lady…

And she had no children and generally no happiness either.

And so first she cried for a long time, and then she became wicked.

Bulgakov (1997, p. 184)

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Reich (1990). This volume also includes articles by, among other authors, Martha Crenshaw. The Logic of Terrorism: Terrorist Behavior as a Product of Strategic Choice (pp. 7–24); and Question to be Answered, Research to be Done, Knowledge to be Applied (pp. 247–260).

  2. 2.

    Database of Worldwide Terrorism Incidents RAND website: http://smapp.rand.org/rwtid/search_form.php. Accessed on 26 September 2019.

  3. 3.

    The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism website: http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd. Accessed on 26 January 2019.

  4. 4.

    Global Terrorism Index Reports: http://economicsandpeace.org/reports. Accessed on 26 January 2019.

  5. 5.

    Country Reports on Terrorism: https://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/crt. Accessed on 26 January 2019.

  6. 6.

    Te-Sat: Terrorism Situation and Trend Reports 2007–2019 prepared by Europol available: https://www.europol.europa.eu. Accessed on 28 August 2019.

  7. 7.

    TE-SAT 2007–2019: Terrorism Situation and Trend Report. Available: Europol website: https://www.europol.europa.eu. Accessed on 28 August 2019.

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Gasztold, A. (2020). Feminism and the Problem of Terrorism. In: Feminist Perspectives on Terrorism. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37234-7_4

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